Is this a blast from the past post from 1998?

I admit I skimmed the Slashdot summary and thought it was compressing 3D information into Twitter-sized bites, similar to the Twitter music notation from a while back. But then I click on the links and see RSS FEEDS IN THREE DEES! Not even really in 3D, just with perspective.

I'm not even going to dig up any of my "Oh, just stop with trying to display text in 3D" rants because everyone has to know by now, right? Everyone but these guys. (Hint: Do a search for VRML.)

And what's with the "120 lines of code" crap? I could probably do the same thing in 5 lines of Processing, or a whole lot more of ASM. But this is a stupid thing that should never have been done. And not "stupid as in awesome" like launching flaming pianos with a trebuchet or "stupid as in a challenge" like getting a toaster to play Oregon Trail, but stupid as in pointless with no redeeming value.

So as much as Slashdotters love to bash on people for not pulling the subtle points from the fine article, don't bother with this one. It was a mistake to have made it to the front page, on top o the much greater mistake of actually doing it in the first place.

This story supports my position that tablets are stupid except for a very few vertical business markets, and will go away faster than netbooks once people can see past the hype.

I think you vastly underestimate the market for pure consumption. The average American family spends over $1500 a year on TV and television subscription fees.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3126_7-57508986/amazon-backtracks-will-offer-$15-opt-out-for-ads-on-kindle-fire-tablets/

"I just received this email from an Amazon spokesperson:
'I wanted to let you know that with Kindle Fire HD there will be a special offers opt-out option for $15. We know from our Kindle reader line that customers love our special offers and very few people choose to opt out. We're happy to offer customers the choice.'"

It's not your reading comprehension that's lacking, it's your ability to use a modern internet search engine. It's actually much faster and easier than bitching in a public forum.

But I suppose airing your lazy ignorance is probably... wait, why would you want to do that again?

No mod points this week to mod you up so I'll just post this to say: Exactly!

To me this is the equivalent of book publishers saying they'll only sell books to people who read them in book clubs.

Well I hate book clubs. I want to read at my own pace, not the pace of the group. And I hate multiplayer games. I want to play on my own schedule. And I want repeatable experiences. Multiplayer games can't offer this.

And add to it that now that my friends and I are all adults, finding time to game together is rare. And when we do have mutual free time we'd rather spend it face-to-face than face-to-screen.

Keeping your craft within a constrained area? Not hard.

Heck, getting a pedal powered craft off the ground isn't that hard. (No really, you can make a pedal powered hovercraft in a weekend. It will only lift you a centimeter, but again, getting off the ground is not that hard.)

But getting 9 feet in the air? That is seriously hard, and no craft I've seen has gotten close. Every single one has used ground effect for their lift, which is why they're all stuck around 18-24" . That's a far cry for supporting your own weight.

Best of luck to them, but they'll seriously need to rethink their craft if they want to win the prize.

Oh god yes, this.

With all of the buzz about Skyrim I felt a strong pull to play it. But given my past experiences with their recent games there was no way I was going to spend any money on it. The number and nature of the bugs is simply embarrassing for a AAA title in 2012. Hell, they'd be embarrassing for a budget title in 1990.

Iceland has 1% the land mass of the US. I could cover the infrastructure costs of that with my pocket change.

Try covering 3.5 million square miles with up-to-date infrastructure sometime.

Christ, what an asshole.

Yes, this was known. But the process of pulling them off the ROMs yourself? Documenting the process? Yeah, no one was kind enough to wrap all that up in one place. It's a fun read and if you're not careful even you, Mighty Internet Commenter, might learn something.

Shut the hell up and contribute. Bitching gets no one anywhere.

I doubt it's hard, technically to truly disappear. The hard part is that you have to be willing to leave absolutely everything behind.

Step 1: Phone off, battery out. If battery can't come out it gets destroyed.

Step 2: Wipe and leave behind anything that connects to the Internet.

Step 3: Turn everything into cash immediately.

You won't be able to hide that you're doing a runner, but you can make it harder to get your trail after you do run.

Get a hair cut, color hair (just 2 shades different, not drastic), add/remove facial hair, buy some cheap glasses frames with 0 correction glass in them. Buy entirely different wardrobe, half from Wal-mart, half from thrift stores.

A trip to Kinko's to print a temp set of fraudulent license plates for my car. Or better yet, swap plates with someone with the same model and color as mine. Or best give a buddy who looks like you $500 to drive the car to city X and fly back. You take the train/bus to city Y, in a different time zone from X and forget about the car.

After that it would depend on how much cash I had and how well connected the people after me wanted me. A good fake ID would be in the loop somewhere, but I honestly don't know anywhere to do that in person any more. Some time at cafés or public libraries with computers (and some attentive browser washing) would probably turn up something. Drive to a city chosen completely at random that I don't have any previous contact with. (No visits, family, friends, etc.) Population of at least 50K.

I'm not sure if I'd leave the country or not. (In this case I'm in the US.) It would require a better fake ID and borders are choke points of surveillance. Also fingerprints.

If I felt the need to send "I'm okay" information to my friends or family I'd do it through the post at least a 3 hour drive from where I've set up camp. No return address.

But.. but... but... isn't Bitcoin for people too smart to use government currency? How could these smart people fall for a scam like that?

(Yes, that's snark but lets face it, any time anyone scoffs at Bitcoin a nerd magically pops up and tells them they obviously don't understand Bitcoin well enough.)

But keep them (me) in a coma to harvest for organs.

What?

I've had one of each generation Kindle and the latest Kindle non-touch/ non keyboard is by far the most rugged of the group. Previous models would break or at least pop out part of the plastic case when dropped from a couple feet. The model cited (I think Amazon calls it simple the "Kindle") has a metal frame that has survived some rather scary drops with no problem.

Previous models also had a significant gap between the screen and the case. It was probably 0.05mm, but it was enough to collect tons of dust. The new model has the screen flush with the case which hasn't trapped any dust on mine. They've also gotten rid of the speakers (no more speaker grill holes) and the headphone jack which remove more access points for dust and dirt.

Not that it's rugged for jungle use straight out of the box, but it's much more rugged than its predecessors. I'd still get a waterproof case for it (though I've splashed it with water a few times with no ill effects) and probably a hard case too. The frame will protect from drops on edge but it will still break if you sit on it.

Really? Has anyone ever intentionally used the YouTube app in iOS? I never have and I've owned an iPhone since v1. If Google wants a iOS Youtube app, please make me download it instead of preloading it. My phone doesn't need crapware.

This will mean that soon most of the posts people see will be promoted posts. (Mom isn't going to pay $200 for her friends to see photos of her darling and Jr. isn't going to pony up so everyone can see how artfully he's skipping class.) This will drive users away, ultimately driving down the value of the promoted posts. Facebook's random post filtering already drives up the noise (I have to post 10x so everyone will see it!) this just amplifies a particular part of the noise, buying the signal that much more.

And this is why IPOs are bad for companies who already have enough cash and no plans. They play to the shareholders and eat the business alive.